The Cycle Begins with Othniel, Ehud, and Shamgar

The chapter picks up 2:22–23 and names what was left. Moses had described the wilderness the same way: God led Israel forty years “to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart” (Deuteronomy 8:2). The wars of Canaan were now history the young had only heard about.

“To teach them war” uses lamad, the verb Moses used for learning the law: “that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them” (Deuteronomy 5:1). Isaiah’s vision reverses the phrase: “neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4).

Baal-hermon suggests that Mount Hermon carried a shrine of Baal (compare 1 Chronicles 5:23). The Sidonians are the Phoenicians of the coast, and “the entering in of Hamath” was the northern limit the promise had set (Numbers 34:8).

“To know whether” is the language of a test that reveals: God said to Abraham after Moriah, “now I know that thou fearest God” (Genesis 22:12). The second purpose of the remaining nations is not military at all but moral: to show whether Israel would listen.

These six peoples are named in exactly this order at the burning bush, where God promised to bring Israel into “the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites” (Exodus 3:8). Israel came to that place, and settled among them.

Deuteronomy 7:3–4 had forbidden these marriages and given the reason: “For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods.” This verse records the prohibited act and then the result the law had predicted, in the same order.

“Groves” is asherot, not trees but wooden cult poles for the goddess Asherah. Inscriptions found at Kuntillet Ajrud in the Sinai, from about 800 BC, bless people “by YHWH and his Asherah”, which shows how closely the two worships could be mixed. “Forgat” is the failure Deuteronomy 8:11 warned against.

Chushan-rishathaim means “Cushan of double wickedness”, most likely a mocking nickname. “Mesopotamia” is Aram-naharaim, “Aram of the two rivers”. Because Othniel came from the south, some scholars suggest Aram is a misreading of Edom, which in Hebrew differs by one letter.

“Cried” is zaaq, the cry Israel raised in Egypt (Exodus 2:23). “Deliverer” is moshia, a saviour, from the root of Joshua’s name. The first judge comes from Judah, the tribe God had named to go up first (1:2).

This is the first of the notices in Judges that the Spirit of the LORD came upon a deliverer; the same is said of Gideon (6:34), Jephthah (11:29) and Samson (13:25; 14:6, 19; 15:14). “Prevailed” is azaz, grew strong.

Forty years, a generation, recurs through Judges (5:31; 8:28; 13:1). Added end to end, the book’s periods of oppression and rest come to more than 1 Kings 6:1 allows for the 480 years from the exodus to the temple, which has led many to think some judges overlapped.

“Strengthened” is chizzeq, the verb used of God hardening, literally strengthening, Pharaoh’s heart (Exodus 9:12). Here God strengthens a foreign king against Israel. Eglon’s name comes from egel, a calf, a name that the next verses make grimly apt.

“The city of palm trees” is Jericho (Deuteronomy 34:3). Joshua had cursed anyone who refounded it, and it lay unwalled; Moab, with Ammon and Amalek, uses it as a foothold on the west bank.

The years of servitude grow as the book goes on: eight under Chushan, eighteen under Eglon, twenty under Jabin (4:3), seven under Midian (6:1), eighteen under Ammon (10:8), forty under the Philistines (13:1).

“Lefthanded” is literally “bound in his right hand”. Benjamin means “son of the right hand”, yet the tribe was famous for left handed men: Judges 20:16 counts seven hundred of them who could sling a stone at a hair and not miss. The “present” is minchah, the tribute.

“A cubit length” translates gomed, a measure found only here, probably shorter than the ordinary cubit, perhaps about a foot. Strapped on the right thigh, the dagger sat where a guard checking a right handed man would not expect it.

“Fat” is bari, the word for the well fed cows of Pharaoh’s dream (Genesis 41:2) and for fatted animals. The king named for a calf is described in the language of cattle ready for slaughter.

Ehud first escorts the tribute bearers away. The whole delegation leaves the court together, which gives him a reason to be seen departing and a reason, when he returns alone, to claim a private message.

“Quarries” is pesilim, a word that elsewhere means carved images, as in “burn their graven images” (Deuteronomy 7:5). Ehud turns back at the idols near Gilgal, perhaps images set up by the Moabites, or perhaps the stones Joshua raised there (Joshua 4:20). “Keep silence” is one word, has, “hush”.

“Summer parlour” is literally “the upper room of coolness”, a rooftop chamber catching the breeze. “A message from God” is devar Elohim, and davar means both word and thing: what Ehud brings from God is a thing, the dagger. The king stands, perhaps out of respect for an oracle, and exposes himself.

Three quick verbs, put forth, took, thrust, tell the act in one breath. The next chapter tells Jael’s deed with the same speed and the same verb for driving the blade home, “smote the nail” (4:21). Both oppressors fall to a hidden weapon in a private room.

“The dirt came out” translates a word found nowhere else, parshedonah. It may mean the king’s bowels emptied, or that Ehud went out through some opening; both readings have ancient support. Either way, the detail is meant to be ugly.

“Porch” is misderonah, another word found only here, perhaps a vestibule or colonnade. Some scholars propose that Ehud left through a latrine opening while the doors stayed bolted behind him; the text says only that he shut and locked the doors and went out.

“Covereth his feet” is a Hebrew euphemism for relieving oneself, used when Saul went into the cave at En-gedi (1 Samuel 24:3). The locked doors and the smell of verse 22 support the servants’ guess, and the guess buys Ehud time.

“Tarried till they were ashamed” means they waited until the delay became embarrassing. The key was probably a large wooden key that lifted the bolt from outside. “Behold, their lord was fallen down dead” uses the same “behold” that reveals Sisera dead in Jael’s tent (4:22).

Seirath, “the wooded place” or “the hairy place”, is otherwise unknown, somewhere in the hill country of Ephraim. Ehud passes the idols near Gilgal a second time, now going the other way.

“Blew” is the same Hebrew verb as “thrust” in verse 21, taqa, to drive in or to blast: the dagger and the trumpet are sounded with one verb. “He before them” shows the judge leading the charge down from the hills in person.

Seizing the fords of Jordan cut the Moabites west of the river off from home. Gideon’s allies do the same to Midian (7:24), and Jephthah’s men to Ephraim at the Shibboleth test (12:5–6). “Follow after me” is literally “pursue after me”.

“Lusty” is shamen, literally “fat”, the adjective the King James renders as robust. Every Moabite soldier who falls is described with the word that fits their king: ten thousand fat men for one fat king.

Eighty years is the longest rest in the Book of Judges, twice the usual forty. “Subdued” is kana, to be humbled, brought low: the kingdom that had subdued Israel for eighteen years is itself brought under Israel’s hand.

An ox goad is malmad habbaqar, literally a “cattle teacher”, from lamad, the verb of verse 2, “to teach them war”. Deborah’s song remembers Shamgar’s time as one when “the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways” (5:6). The Philistines appear here for the first time in the book.